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Months ago I made my first trip to Daviess County. I posted about it in December here.

My friend Amy was back in Indianapolis, taking a vacation from New Orleans (huh…). We decided last fall that we just hadn’t gotten enough of this area and that we would have to come back. So that’s what we did this weekend. It was a delight. We learned a ton! We found many many tombstones of family members. We visited the home churches of Amy’s family. We even danced in a cornfield and in a Dairy Queen drive-thru. It doesn’t get much better than that on a chilly spring Saturday.

Stop 1: GOP Conference Cornfield

We left Indianapolis early after a delightful breakfast at Sister’s Restaurant. We took I-70 over to Cloverdale and went south all the way to Washington. The drive was beautiful. The weather was weird. Super cloudy and eerie, and then the clouds would go and it was bright blue skies, and then back to grey and sad, then BLUE! We got pretty close to Washington when we saw a sign for a Historical Marker down another road. We stop for all historical markers. So we turned down a small country road, crossed some RR tracks and ended up at a marker in the middle of a cornfield.

We learned from the marker that the GOP had a rally/conference/meeting in this cornfield during the elections in 1938. We also discovered that they buried a time capsule at the site that is not to be opened till 2038. I loooove time capsules (or at least the idea behind them), so needless to say I got really excited. As I was lying on the ground, posing for a picture with the time capsule spot I saw a dead turtle near my head and ran away. Bleh.

I might be too excited about this time capsule. I kind of want to show up for this opening in 2038. I wonder if the neighbors would think that was weird.

We then walked on the dusty road a bit and smelled the air because it was so so so clean. It was absolutely silent. I forgot now nice it is to be in the country sometimes. We attempted to enjoy the country by dancing and playing airplane in the road. It was enjoyable. It worked.

Erin airplaning

Amy dancing

We drove through a couple of small towns of note:

Freedom, Indiana – Home of an Indiana libertarian that Amy heard speak, who moved here because the name of the town was “Freedom”. Gag.

Elnora – Sad. This town looked like it had seen better days.

Newberry – Cute but very tiny town.

We finally got to Washington and Amy got us to the library without any help of a map. Amazing! Yay Amy! I think she has such a good memory of how to get there because of the stress I caused her trying to get there last time.

Simply put, this is a beautiful Carnegie library. It’s just so pretty. The exterior is solid and the interior is broken into small rooms, but somehow still feels open and airy. I loved it. We came here last time we were in town and got here 15 minutes before it closed because it closes at 2 on a Saturday! What use is that?

We camped out at a room in the genealogy section on the other side of the bookshelf from a serial grunter. We knew exactly how successful his research endeavors were going based on the grunting. He was often confused, frustrated, and then every once in awhile successful (these were a higher pitched grunt-more of a sigh).

We began scanning the shelves and immediately found histories of the Arvin family, which was the maiden name of Amy’s grandmother. There was even a published book about the entire history of the Arvin family in the area and how they got there. It was pretty amazing. We found her great grandfather, great great grandfather, and so on.

Now, one thing about my friend Amy is that she is really Catholic. Like we’ve been working on her tree for a while now and I hadn’t found a single relative of hers yet that was not Catholic. It’s a part of her identity. I can only imagine a tragedy unfolding if she ever found out she wasn’t 100% Catholic (oh…the guilt). Then the Arvin book did what I was supposed to keep secret if I ever found out. Henry Arvin, the man who brought the family to Indiana was a Catholic convert (a 400 pound one at that, who was too big to farm) and was most likely Baptist before he converted to his wife’s religion. Amy went through a series of facial transformations that had me laughing so hard I thought I was going to run the grunter out of the room.

This is her actually finding the text that he was a convert. When she gasped I grabbed my camera.

Feeling the shock.

Attempting to deal with the news.

After the discovery of the Arvin information we continued to find information of the family in wedding records, church records, and county information. It was a pretty successful trip despite the fact that we only had 3.5 hours there. Before we left I used the information we got from our research there to plot out the next portion of our trip.

Stop 3: St. Peter’s Church – Montgomery, Indiana

St. Peter's Cemetery in Montgomery, Indiana

We headed to St. Peter’s Church in Montgomery, a large church in a tiny town. The older part of the cemetery here was much larger than that of the rest of the cemeteries we visited that day. It was on a hill and quite scenic. We were able to find quite a few people named Arvin, including a grandparent! Win!

As we were driving out of Montgomery, we saw a sign for an Amish Village down the street. Obviously we had to go. We turned a corner and there was an entire “village” of white buildings with a couple buggies and some horses. There were also a TON of older folks milling around the grounds and shopping. What we came upon was Gasthof Amish Village. There was a hotel, a bakery, an antique shop (maybe more than one), a restaurant, buggy rides, nature, and more. We walked around in sort of a stunned, open-mouthed stupor. Where did this come from? Where are we? Is that singing? What is this place? We gave up trying to figure out most of the answers to these questions and continued onto Cannelburg!

Stop 4: Cannelburg, Indiana (again!)

We visited Cannelburg the last time we were here and loved it. We had to go back to see the Catholic Church and see if we missed a cemetery that might have been there. All Saints Catholic Church was there and we decided that those parishioners were most likely buried in St. Peter’s. We revisited our favorite Cannelburg landmark, the Cannelburg Jailhouse.

Amy got gutsy, got out, and decided to give a little peek inside said jailhouse to find out what’s going on in there.

Amy being brave.

Turns out it was just a shed. Boo! I think she was hoping to see some shackles and a tin cup for water. No such luck.

Stop 5 : St. Mary’s Cemetery (unplanned)

This was unplanned because this church has burned and is no longer listed on any maps. In fact, the cemetery that is adjacent to the burned church is not even listed on Google Maps. I have looked for it since and cannot find it again! Well, I’m glad we turned around and followed the signs toward St. Mary’s because we found a ton of Amy’s relatives there. For those of you looking for this place, the church (no longer open) and cemetery are located at County Road 1200 East and County Road 350 North, on the NW side of the intersection, just south of West Boggs Lake. The most important things we found here were numerous McAtee graves.

We loved that we found this place without planning for it. The opportunity presented itself and we had to go. And it was awesome.

Stop 6 – St. Martin Church and Cemetery, Whitfield, Indiana

Based on Google Maps I was pretty sure Whitfield was going to be a small town. I was right. I’m pretty sure Whitfield consists of the church and a couple of houses. The church is a pretty white building, reminiscent of New England country churches. The Anticipation service was going on at St. Martin while we were visiting the cemetery and when church was out we were able to actually go inside. It was an older church and the interior was cozy and simple. The churchgoers seemed friendly and didn’t look at us like we were criminals, which was nice. Amy was convinced that most of these people were probably her cousins. She was waiting to get invited home to meet the relatives.

St. Martin Church, Whitfield, Indiana

We found the one grave we were really hoping to find, that of Anna Dell (McAtee) Arvin. This is Amy’s great grandmother. She was delighted to find it. It wasn’t until we got to St. Martin that she felt any sort of connection to the area. Earlier, as we were driving away from Montgomery, I said, “It’s so weird that your people are from here…isn’t it?” And she said, “I was just thinking that. I feel like no connection to this.” But she loved St. Martin, and now wants to go to the Hog Roast they’re having this summer.

Stop 7 – Hindostan Falls, AKA Disasterland

Things had been going too well. Other than a Mexican food lunch and stomach issue, the trip had been too perfect. So something had to go awry.

When I looked at the map, I noticed that heading away from Whitfield and driving towards French Lick we could make a little stop in a town called Hindostan Falls. There isn’t anything left of the town anymore (which used to be the almost the same size as Louisville back in the earlier part of the 19th century). It’s now a small recreational area. That would be nice, right? No. It wasn’t.

The drive started out fine, till we saw two cars pulled off on the side of the road. It looked like a back country drug deal. I’m sure it wasn’t, but I made a joke about it and Amy got stressed. Then the County Road we were on turned into a gravel road. Amy got more stressed. A bridge showed up ahead of us and she said, “You’re not taking my car over that, are you?” I really considered turning around because she looked like she was going to have a panic attack. Then as I was getting ready to switch into reverse, a truck pulled up behind us. “Welp, looks like we have to go over!”. And we did. And it was fine. The road turned back into pavement and it seemed like we were out of the woods. I wasn’t aware that we would soon be in the mud.

Brooks Bridge - On the way to Hindostan Falls.

Southern Indiana has seen its fair share of flooding this spring. I was not, however, aware that there were still flooding issues. The street began to look dirty, then muddy, then mud. Like there was no street. Just mud. I soon realized that if I stopped the car, we would probably stay stopped for good. So I very very carefully maneuvered the car into a U-turn and started going back the way we came. The man in the pickup truck was walking towards us with two kids. As we got closer, I rolled down my window as I slowly rode by and said, “This mud is horrible! I had no idea!”. He said, “Just be careful, I looked over at the river and all of a sudden my truck was off the road.” I realized that they were walking cause their massive truck got stuck. I realized there was nothing we could do for these people. If we stopped we would stay stopped. We had no phone reception. We couldn’t help push that thing out, they needed a massive truck for a tow. Their only chance was to get to one of the neighboring houses, and luckily there were a few nearby. I just kept thinking, “Move on! Save yourself!”

Driving out of the mud. Ugh. Muck muck muck.

We finally got back to pavement and decided to NOT go back towards the scary bridge. We passed a church that we were convinced was called “The Church of the Gross” because they had a very unfortunate graphic designer for their font. It was, in fact, called the Church of the Cross. We laughed…a lot. We soon made it to French Lick. (sigh)

Stop 8 – French Lick, Indiana

When is French Lick not a good idea? Never. Both Amy and I love French Lick. We stopped by the French Lick Winery for dinner and had a wine tasting while we were waiting for our food. Neither of us bought any wine, but I was definitely tempted. After dinner Amy was very interested in a mini-Blizzard from Dairy Queen. And who am I to say “no” to Dairy Queen?

Amy played DJ during our entire trip and did a pretty good job throughout. When we got to Dairy Queen she really hit her DJing high point. She turned on the new Justin Timberlake and Timbaland song, Carry Out. If you haven’t heard this song, I would highly recommend it. I was skeptical of it myself, but after watching the ridiculous video I was completely won over. We danced. The guy behind us was very amused. And then MotownPhilly came on. It was kind of awesome. We listened to three fabulous dance tunes before we got our mini-Blizzard. We didn’t mind waiting.

A few posts prior to this I wrote about my intentions of going back to Rumley, Ohio with my little sister. This trip finally happened on our Spring Break. It was kind of awesome and often hilarious.

Lil’ Amsters (as she will be referred to) came over to my house around 9ish and we prepped for the trip. Camera (check), maps (check), notes (check), computer (check), and coffee (double check!). We were set!

I drove. This was probably for the best, despite the fact that I have an older car than Lil’ Amsters, and it often drives like it’s going to fall apart at any second. I have recently (over the past 10 years) developed a car sickness issue. It has gotten to the point where if I am not driving, I get super nauseated. Sometimes even when I am driving, but the roads are super windy, I’ll still feel a little wonky. If I’m in the backseat…watch out. I will be moaning and whining within minutes. The backseat of a large automobile, like a van, is almost unimaginable to me now. Amy has her own car issues. She has developed a fear of driving on the interstate in construction, or along walls, or near semis, which is pretty much MOST of the interstate. In fact, as we were driving she told me a hilarious story of a recent trauma stemming from her fear, which culminated with the QOTD (quote of the day): ” …and that was when I realized I could never drive monks to the airport again”. I laughed for like….20 minutes.

The longer we drove, the more I realized I think I built up Amy’s expectations for this trip. She had her own story of a ghost town that she came upon in Arizona about 7 years ago. It was an actual ghost town. She could even wander in and out of the houses. Super creepy and super awesome. She said she even had a dream about our trip the night before. In her dream a tornado had dropped a house next to her, on its side. She really wanted to go searching through it but she wanted to wait for me. That was sweet, even if it was a dream.

Piqua, Ohio

So we headed to our first stop. Piqua! The reason that I wanted to stop here on the way is because it was the last residence of a great great grandfather, Daniel Staudt. As we drove through we were kind of stunned by some of the amazing neighborhoods in this random little town. As we began to follow the directions towards our family’s home we realized he was not in one of these neighborhoods. He was definitely on the other side of the tracks. We found the house. He died in 1935, so I’m guessing this was probably the actual house he lived in. It doesn’t look newer than that.

621 Miami, in Piqua, Ohio. Last residence of Daniel Staudt, our great great great grandfather.

Photo of Daniel Staudt from old timey days. Date unknown.

His father, Simon, was a weaver. One thing we noticed about Piqua was that there was a restaurant called Weavers and a blanket company right on the Main Street. I’m going to have to look into that to see if there is any connection.

Sidney, Ohio

We drove on to the Shelby County’s seat, Sidney. We loved Sidney. What a strange and interesting place full of amazing architecture. Also, I have not seen so many banks in one town square as I did there. My favorite was this one. I couldn’t stop looking at it. It was just so insane!

Bank in Sidney. They promote "thrift". That colored section there, thats all TINY little tiles. It is also along the side of the building.

Some of the tile work on the wall of the bank closer up. Amazing! This building is covered with this stuff!

The following pictures include my other favorite spot on the square. Please keep in mind that these two shops are right next to each other. There is one shop that separates them.

The 4:20 shop. OBVIOUSLY not your average Smoke Shop. Doc Rob runs this place, as you can plainly see on the plywood sign.

I believe this is a Right to Life Thrift Shop? And there is a dance studio here as well? I am hoping the dance studio space is upstairs or something.

We weren’t crazy hungry yet so we headed to the library. This is the first time Lil’ Amsters has done any research with me. I think she was a little skeptical of being able to find anything here. We got down to the basement, where all the local historical information resided, and found one man researching and two adolescent girls snickering about cute boys and books about vampires (oh, the girls were spontaneous singers, as well).

We found a WEALTH of information there in the basement. In fact, the information I was mostly seeking out was about Rumley and the Goings/Goins family. I found a book that was completely about the black communities of Shelby County, and specifically Rumley. One of the biggest questions I was trying to answer was: why did everyone leave? And why did they leave at this time? Turns out that was a question that a lot of people had. This book provided a few different ideas, that were different from ones I read before. This book suggested that maybe their southern style of farming wasn’t working in the north. I am guessing this would have caused them to move elsewhere earlier since they were there for like 30-50 years. Another suggestion was that they were irritated with all the white people moving into the area. So this book suggested that the families in Rumley were racist and annoyed with white people and wanted to move where there were less of them. This is unlikely since my family moved from Rumley to areas full of white people. So these were both very strange suggestions. Also, many of them had intermarried, soooo… They were of mixed races. Not really buying that argument. So, we’ve still got a mystery.

Lil’ Amsters’ favorite part of the trip to the library was looking at the death record book, which includes the cause of death for everyone. I’m going to admit, this is very entertaining. I have to remind myself that these were real people and we shouldn’t be laughing at their demise but here are some of the good ones: killed while wrestling, yellow stomach, fits, confinement, drunkeness, teething, and sinking chills.

Another thing I learned was that a distant uncle, Salthial Goings, was a RASCAL. I noticed before that he had been married a lot. Well turns out he got divorced a lot. In the divorce court records to a Sarah Goings, it states, “Goings, Salathial vs. Sarah A. Goings: Oct 1860. Death of plaintiff suggested, action abated.” Really? By “suggested” do they mean “assumed”? Or was he really THAT bad?

There was so much more at the Sidney library to be researched, but we didn’t have all day. We spent about an hour there. By the time we left my stomach was RAGING with hunger. We headed over to a restaurant on the square called The Spot. And it truly was. They had some great malted milkshakes. I felt like I had walked into a small town version of the Peach Pit. That was a Beverly Hills 90210 reference for all those who didn’t catch it.

After lunch we continued around the Sidney square again and marvelled at the banks and weird businesses scattered about. We drove out of town and headed to Rumley.

Rumley, Ohio

We stopped at Collins Cemetery first. This is the “cemetery” I wrote about previously, which is actually just a weird slab in the middle of a field with a bunch of headstones stacked up and a memorial stone. I am wondering if this was the spot of the original cemetery. Are the bodies still buried here?

Stacks of headstones in the "cemetery".

View of Collins Cemetery from the road.

We took a few pictures and continued into “town”.

We stopped at the old schoolhouse which still stands there. At the library we did find out that this schoolhouse was actually built in the 1890s, which means that none of our family went to school here, but it was still pretty old and kind of awesome. Based on the context clues (beer boxes inside, huge BBQ smokers outside) this place is now used for a party spot. A gathering place. I’m just glad it’s being used and not being removed.

Lil' Amsters checking out the exterior of the Old School House in Rumley.

We moved onto the church and neighboring creek. We learned from the books in the library that this creek was where the residents and churchgoers were baptized. We wandered down to the banks and realized that they had recently had a flood. We optimistically hoped to find some random remnant of the old village but there was not much. We did find some bricks that were not stamped with a title, and wondered if they had been homemade in those parts, but they were pretty nice and seemed pretty newish.

Loramie Creek that runs through the north section of Rumley. The site of many Rumley baptisms.

We headed next door to the church and had a look. The church had very little information about their actual structure. I have no idea if it’s been rebuilt. It has at least been re-sided. Other than that I have no idea.

This is the Rumley Baptist Church. A memorial plaque to the old village remains on this property.

As Lil’ Amy looked around she got kind of sad. She realized that there was really nothing left of the old village and no abandoned houses to rummage through. We hoped to see some of the old roads or something, or some old foundations. Nothing. Seems that this area has been cleaned up and there is nothing left. As we pulled off the main strip of Rumley we spotted something just beyond where the town would have been and pulled in. Just what we were looking for! And with no one around!

Having a little peek. Seems it is used for nothing now, nothing much in there but used bottles of alcohol. This place DOES seem like the kind of place to throw a good party.

Amy got her fix of abandoned properties and we moved on.

Houston, Ohio

Our Staudt relatives were buried in Houston, Ohio. We found the cemetery after a series of near missed turns through back-roads Ohio. One thing that I do appreciate in Indiana is that our road numbering system makes a little more sense than Ohio’s system. In Indiana if you miss a road, you can always figure it out at the next road. This is how the internal dialogue would go, “Oh. Wait. Did I miss County Road 400? Lemme see, oh…here’s 450. Oh, and here’s 500. Yep. Missed it. Let me turn around and make this right.” In Ohio, it’s more like this, “Oh my god. If I didn’t have my iPhone I would be screwed.”

We found Houston and the church and the cemetery. We had a lovely little walkabout the cemetery, till the wind shifted and the cow smell became very apparent. The walk became less lovely, but we continued on. We found the graves of most of my direct Staudt relatives. Victory!

Headstone of Simon and Catherine (Oliver) Staudt in Houston Cemetery.

We hopped in the car and headed for home. One of my favorite parts of the trip was soon to come.

Before long Lil’ Amsters was on the phone and I saw a sign for an Historical Marker. I can’t pass a sign like that without inspecting. I turned down the street and found something amazing, Bear’s Mill. This is a still functioning mill that houses a shop where they sell the grain and cornmeal they still make. They also sell the wares of Darke County, Ohio residents. I ended up buying some Bear’s Mill blend coffee….and it’s kind of awesome!

Bear's Creek Mill.

We continued on through a few small towns. And then hit Indiana, and turned south on IN 227.

SR 227

What an amazing stretch of road. If you love those little quick hills that bring your stomach up through your throat you will LOVE this road. I was squealing for miles! Literally miles. Lil’ Amsters on the other hand was trying not to squeal as she was on the phone and was trying to not be rude. She did raise her arms in the traditional roller coaster stance.

While on 227 we also drove through some wacky little towns as well as some amazing ones. Whitewater, Indiana. Strange. That’s all I’m gonna say. 227 took us back to the interstate and we took the boring way the rest of the way home. Lil’ Amsters complained that my car was going to fall apart and that I was driving too fast for it. I was driving the speed limit. Welcome to my life.

Over the course of a couple of weeks after my summer trip to New York and DC I decided that I would create a Google map to identify important places in mine and Andrew’s family history. This would be birthplaces and deathplaces (addresses if possible) and cemeteries mostly. I had a fun time watching my map take shape and actually seeing the pattern of migration across the country. I divided it into four different colors, one for my mother’s branch and then father’s, and then the same for Andrew’s side. The reason I decided to put this together was to create something easily accessible for when we were out on a trip and had a little extra time. This happened while we were in DC and I had a hard time finding a place I wanted to stop because there was no easy way to find all my important locations along a course from DC to Indianapolis.

Does this make me a nerd? Potentially.

Anyway…

I used my fabulous Google map after my trip to Garst Museum to find homes and cemeteries in the area where I could find my peoples.

Andrew had great great great grandparents who lived and died on Water Street in Greenville. I drove past the address but it seems this house has been torn down and was replaced in the 1930s or 1940s. There is a church still next door that seems as though it must have been there while that family was there. I took an uneventful picture for Andrew’s mom along Water Street.

I also knew there were some family members that I couldn’t figure out and I wanted to check some of the smaller pioneer cemeteries in the area.

A lot of my peoples come from Neave Township in Darke County so I looked up a couple of the cemeteries around there and went searching for my surnames. I started out in Oak Hill Cemetery in Fort Jefferson. I’m not sure if Fort Jefferson is a town, village, or what. It’s small and as far as I could tell there weren’t any stoplights. I found a few headstones, but I still haven’t managed to try and match it up with those in my tree.

I then drove by the park (that sits where the fort used to be) and noticed another small cemetery down the street. This was a really small one next to a Methodist Church. I parked and started walking the aisles of stones. Unfortunately I could only read about 50% of the inscriptions. What I found very interesting was that some of the oldest ones were the easiest to read. My only assumption was that it was harder stone. I would like to know what they carved some of those very early headstones from.

As I was finishing my self-guided tour an older gentleman with a cane yelled from the road, “You finding what you’re looking for?” I have to say that throughout this ENTIRE day I had about ten people ask me this. People were so friendly and helpful.

I told him that I wasn’t really sure what I was looking for, but that I had some surnames that I was hoping to find. I did find one or two in this small pioneer cemetery. I found a Nyswonger. It’s spelled a little differently than some of my peoples but it’s possible they’re still related. Spelling in the 1800s seems to have been an afterthought.

Thus began the hour long conversation with the friendly neighbor. He told me ALL about this street and what it used to look like when he moved here. He bought this house over 50 years ago with his wife, Bert (Roberta) who just died two years ago, just sitting in the kitchen after breakfast. He took me on a tour of his amazing garden. His Asian Pear tree was spectacular and I suggested he try to sell them in Greenville. He says he already does that, and smiled proudly. He told me about his kids and his grandkids. When he found out I was from Indianapolis he told me about all of his hiking adventures in Brown County, Indiana. He was in a hiking and camping club.

One thing I had been wondering for a couple years now about this area was why does everyone have a metal roof. It’s the opposite of how it is here. When you drive around in Indy, almost everyone has shingles. If you see a house with a metal roof it’s kind of rare. In old-town Western Ohio if you see a house with shingles it’s rare. Almost everyone has a metal roof. I asked the man why he thought that would be. He says, “Well, they’re more expensive but they last longer.” This wasn’t an answer. I asked, “Well, is there a state tax deduction or something for installing a metal roof?” He said that there was nothing like that. So….I’m still stumped on the roof issue.

After about an hour of chatting he reminded me that it was just about dinner time and I might want to head home. He walked me to my car and saw me off. He was very sweet. I never even got his name, but I know where he lives.